How Paul McCartney's Aunt Helped Inspire 'Paperback Writer'

The Beatles wrote a lot of love songs, and at one point, according to Paul McCartney, someone had just about enough of it.

"Years ago, my Auntie Lil said to me, 'Why do you always write songs about love all the time? Can't you ever write about a horse or the summit conference or something interesting?'" he said in 1966 (via The Beatles: Off the Record). "So, I thought, 'All right, Auntie Lil.' And recently, we've not been writing all our songs about love."

Step one was setting aside some writing time with John Lennon at his home in Weybridge.

"You knew, the minute you got there, cup of tea and you'd sit and write, so it was always good if you had a theme," McCartney said for the 1997 biography Many Years From Now. "I'd had a thought for a song and somehow it was to do with the Daily Mail so there might have been an article in the Mail that morning about people writing paperbacks. Penguin paperbacks was what I really thought of, the archetypal paperback."

A Song in Letter Form

But McCartney didn't want to structure the song like usual.

"I came in, had my bowl of cornflakes and said, 'How's about if we write a letter?' Dear Sir or Madam, next line, next paragraph," he recalled in book that accompanied the 2022 expansion of Revolver. "We went upstairs and put the melody to it. But it’s just a little bluesy song, not a lot of melody. John and I sat down and finished it all up. Then I had the idea to do the harmonies and we arranged that in the studio."

As for Lennon, he let McCartney take the lead, telling Hit Parader in 1972: "I think I might have helped with some of the lyrics. Yes, I did. But it was mainly Paul's tune."

In the studio, recording didn't take long, and a new approach was used.

"'Paperback Writer' was the first time the bass sound had been heard in all its excitement," engineer Geoff Emerick said for The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions. "For a start, Paul played a different bass, a Rickenbacker. Then we boosted it further by using a loudspeaker as a microphone. We positioned it directly in front of the bass speaker and the moving diaphragm of the second speaker made the electrical current."

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The result was something that sounded a bit heavier than previous Beatles singles.

"'Paperback Writer' is son of 'Day Tripper,'" Lennon explained to David Sheff in 1980, "but it is Paul's song. Son of 'Day Tripper' meaning a rock 'n' roll song with a guitar lick on a fuzzy, loud guitar."

"Paperback Writer" was released in America on May 30, 1966, an A-side single backed with a B-side of "Rain." It went to No. 1, replacing the Rolling Stones' "Paint It, Black." For a brief moment it moved down to No. 2 thanks to Frank Sinatra's "Strangers in the Night," then went right back up to the top spot.

Listen to the Beatles' 'Paperback Writer'